On the Blog

Ariana Lyriotakis is Agave Magazine's own Editor-In-Chief. We spoke with her ahead of the magazine's launch on August 1st.

AGAVE: What led you to create Agave Magazine?ARIANA LYRIOTAKIS: Like many others, the vast majority of my reading is done hovering over a screen, clicking through websites, social media and online publications of sorts. Over time, I realised that I was becoming increasingly dissatisfied in the sense that how and what I was reading was failing to provide a continuity of experience. I speak more to this in the inaugural issue, but it's the notion that you can read an article here, jump through images in a slideshow there; ultimately, you are just cramming bits of information into your brain and lacking a well-rounded appreciation or understanding of the subject matter.

As a writer and editor, I suppose I have always had it in the back of my mind to launch a publication of my own, and I have always been fond of mixing genres and forms as well as finding the ways in which various modes of expression intersect and diverge. After a very inspiring trip through the desert earlier in the new year, the ideas for Agave started to really meld together; I decided to do a great deal of research, take the plunge and just make it happen. I am proud to be working in concert with a clever and supportive editorial staff who want Agave Magazine to succeed just as much as I do.

What experience do you want Agave Magazine's readers to take away with them?When we go through submissions, one of the most important questions we ask ourselves is whether the work will stay with our readers after they've seen or read it. I want our readers to know that every piece we have selected provides an authenticity of experience that is worth remembering. We are fortunate to be showcasing so many exceptionally talented individuals who have interesting and fresh perspectives to share.

The look and feel of the magazine is streamlined and sleek without being intimidating. All of the literature, art and photography is brought to the fore and presented in an accessible format that we feel is engaging for a modern readership. Many of the pieces are accompanied by insights from our contributors discussing creative process, how they seek inspiration for their work, and behind-the-scenes information on the actual creation of the pieces themselves. We hope our readers will not only view our contributors as a valuable literary and artistic collective but also be glad to have discovered their work in our pages.

What are the challenges of creating the very first edition of a magazine?There are many! I think there is definitely a learning curve when you're putting out a first issue – you have your own expectations and believe you have pinpointed what those are, and the writers and artists are trying to figure out how they fit within those parameters. Not having a previous issue for comparison can be a challenge to our contributors, but the payoff to be selected for our inaugural edition is invaluable: we offer a lot of space for artists and writers to create and to talk about themselves and their process. Our contributors set the framework for what the magazine will become.

What do you look for in a submission?Restraint. Quiet fortitude. Skillful turns of phrase that take you to another place.... We love pieces that offer all the essentials – no more, no less. We also look for a contemporary narrative: does the author or artist weave a story or show us a new take for a modern audience? Do they have something valuable to contribute to the discussion? We avoid works with overt symbols and ideologies, experimentalism for the sake of pushing the envelope and not investigating form or genre, or anything that we feel is geared mainly toward antagonism or angst.

One of Agave's goals is to provide a more intimate experience with contributors. How do you do this, and why is it important?It can be intensely frustrating for both writers and artists to submit their work for consideration, and then not to receive a response for ages - if they even do receive a response. Therefore, we work hard to give each contributor feedback so they know that we have received their work and that we are excited about reviewing it. If we have to reject a submission, we include whether we think they should re-submit for the next issue and offer some constructive criticism that we hope will keep them in good stead. With some authors, for example, we have been able to work with them closely on re-writes and edits of works that were perhaps 80% there, but just needed a bit of tweaking to make them even better. We want to get a good sense of who our contributors are so we can convey their strongest works, and in so doing, present high quality pieces to our readers that will encourage them to return for the next issue.

J. Powers Bowman creates intensely intricate landscapes, seascapes and cityscapes. Agave Magazine is thrilled to feature one of his works in the upcoming inaugural issue.

AGAVE: Tell us about your creative process: what is the starting point for your art? Do you search for ideas, or do they find you? J. POWERS BOWMAN: The process begins with research; I am always coming across buildings and other structures that I think are historically significant, are overlooked or unfairly reviled, or are simply aesthetically pleasing. I eventually started keeping a list of these things, which means I’ve got a bunch of ideas ready when I sit down to draw. I plan the initial illustrations, but the assembly of a final piece depends more on which drawings are similar enough in size and perspective to work together. An office building and a phone booth that are the same height can’t realistically be placed next to each other, for example.How do you create such detailed images? Would you describe the process as tedious, fascinating, or something in between?As with any large project, I break my work down into easily manageable pieces; I identify the things that I’d like to draw, sketch them, ink in the lines, use patterns to fill the blank spaces, then photocopy and cut them out, arrange them with other similar pieces, then paste them together. There are certainly times when the pace of one step or another frustrates me, but for the most part I love it.

What experience would you like to give your viewers?Hopefully, extensive and repeated viewing can always give viewers a new reward, something that they hadn’t seen before, something they didn’t realize was there, or perhaps find their own personal significance in the content of a given piece.What was your first favourite work of art?Alfred Hitchcock collaborated with the illustrator Fred Banberry to produce some collections of childrens’ ghost stories during the fifties and sixties. One of these collections, entitled Haunted Houseful, contains some of the most beautiful, richly detailed, and scary illustrations that I have ever seen.What themes are you most interested in examining through your art?None. I simply provide the viewer with a hypothetical landscape, comprising things that I find interesting and presented in as much detail as possible, from which they can draw their own meaning. I focus instead on providing the viewers with the highest quality work possible, with the idea that better work will better enable them to find what they want.

The inaugural issue of Agave Magazine comes out in August 2013. Subscribe here to receive Agave delivered directly to your inbox twice yearly.

By Deb A.Michael Sarnowski's poetry is confident and authoritative and, perhaps most importantly, engaging. We are proud to announce the inclusion of one of Michael's works in Agave Magazine's upcoming inaugural issue.

AGAVE: What experience would you like to give your readers?MICHAEL SARNOWSKI: Well, in Ilya Kaminsky’s “Musica Humana” he writes, “Once or twice in his life, a man / is peeled like apples.” In addition to the utter beauty and truth of that statement, I think there’s an incredible amount that we can learn about ourselves if we acknowledge and try to understand those moments. Not every poem is going to be a total enlightenment, but I think every poem has the potential to be a struck match in a pitch black room.

Do you seek to understand before you write, or do you rely on the writing process itself to bring you closer to understanding?The majority of the time, the writing process is what brings me closer to understanding my topics. With that said, if I’m writing about a personal experience I tend to allow a lot of time to pass before addressing it. This allows me to process the event and the emotion in the moment, and affords a retrospection that would be lost if I tried to write in the heat of the experience. Obviously, if the impulse and ideas are there it’s best to act on them, but I think it’s important to be mindful of how the outcome will differ based on your proximity to the content.

What themes are you most interested in examining through your writing?I tend to think my work is propelled by the theme of inquiry. My poems are often prompted by the search for answers, but the poem itself occurs in an isolated moment during that search. Yet, regardless of subject matter, I firmly believe that every poem I write is a love poem.

How do you know when a poem is finished?Aside from the usual steps in the editing and revision process, the poem needs to either feel as if it’s gone somewhere unexpected, that it makes you think about the topic in a new way, or causes you to ask different questions. A good reminder is the line from Robert Frost’s essay “The Figure a Poem Makes” in which he states “No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader.” This act of discovery tends to be a litmus test to see if I’ve taken the content far enough, or if I’ve really done the topic justice.

What are you reading now?I’m reading Raymond Carver’s collected poems, All of Us. As someone who loves Carver’s fiction, it’s ruthless how that same depth of experience exists in his poetry. They’re like bouillon cubes, but instead of soup you’re left with alcoholism and failing relationships.

The inaugural issue of Agave Magazine comes out in August 2013. Subscribe here to receive Agave delivered directly to your inbox twice yearly.

You may still have a copy on a shelf somewhere: your favourite book from your childhood. It was the one you insisted your parents read every night before bed, or the one you read alone with a flashlight under the covers after all the lights had been turned off. It was your introduction to worlds that existed only in minds and hearts; it was your introduction to the limitlessness of your own imagination.

Children's books can say much more about a culture and an age than they tend to get credit for. Often perfect examples of a successful marriage of art and literature, they reflect the values we wish to instill within the next generation. They are also where your own love of reading began, and possibly your penchant for furry monsters. And yet they often fall under the radar; the best are celebrated with a disclaimer: "It's a great kids' book." When was the last time you heard anyone call The Very Hungry Caterpillar a masterpiece?And yet, as W.H Auden said, "There are no good books only for children."

It is this quote that begins the journey into the New York Public Library's new exhibit, "The ABC of It: Why Children's Books Matter". The collection of treasures –Alice Liddell's own copy of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, recordings of E.B. White reading excerpts of Charlotte's Web, Nathaniel Hawthorne's family copy of Mother Goose – is set into a historical context, illustrating how children's literature alludes to a vision of childhood at the time, from stern lessons in morality to frivolous flights of fancy. And along the way you can pass through that famous great green room.

"The ABC of It: Why Children's Books Matter" runs through March 23rd, 2014 at the New York Public Library.

Agave Press

Literary, art and photography publications, and publisher of fine books. Quarterly magazines are available online and in print, and feature contributors from around the globe. For current book titles, visit our homepage.